Testimony Tuesdays: Meredith

Before I met Christ, I was a rule follower and a people pleaser. On the outside I looked successful and happy, but I was very lost and unhappy inside. My thinking was very judgmental of everyone around me, but especially myself. I frantically sought the affirmation and love I needed from everyone around me, which with my peers sometimes led to bad situations of sin for myself and those close to me.

I met Jesus in the Eucharist on my very first retreat in High School, when I felt his presence and realized His great love and mercy for me. He existed, and he actually cared about all that was going on in my heart! God gradually revealed himself more to me and drew me to want to know him more through retreats, summer camps, and daily Mass. I struggled through continuing to walk with him each day in prayer and relationship rather than going through the motions. He continued to show me his faithfulness and mercy each time he picked me up from where I had fallen and gave me the grace to recommit my life to following him and trusting him more to be able to carry my cross each day.

His calling me to holiness and his hand in my life has been clear since coming to Baylor. Encountering persecution for being Catholic and seeking out why I am Catholic led me to fall more in love with Jesus and his Church, which empowered me to share my faith more actively and explicitly with others. Finding my identity as a daughter of God and a part of His Church within the community of St. Peter’s has challenged me to no end in authenticity and love for others. He gave me a strong desire to serve the Church with my whole life, which caused me to almost transfer to Franciscan University, OH my sophomore year in order to be best equipped to do this, but I wound up staying at Baylor and trusting He had a plan for me here… and He did!

My junior year Baylor became a FOCUS campus and I encountered the young missionaries who had such zeal for souls and tools to help us share our faith in more incarnational and daring ways than I had ever imagined. I grew immensely in my commitment to prayer and discovered the total gift of self in being a disciple of Jesus Christ which brought me so much joy! Through gradually overcoming my fears and learning to trust and say yes to God’s call, I committed the next two years of my life to serving as a FOCUS missionary- praise God! As senior year at Baylor unfolds before my eyes I am able to see my life as such a gift. I am so thankful for conversion, for knowledge, for perseverance, for my family and for all the people who have been Christ to me. Everything is a grace if we are open to seeing through his eyes. And when we do, we will be saints!